Land Use Change Issues and Opportunities for Aberdeenshire

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Land Use Change Issues and Opportunities for Aberdeenshire Land Use Change Issues and Opportunities for Aberdeenshire January 2015 1 1.0 Aim and scope of the report 1.1 This report explores land use change issues and opportunities in Aberdeenshire. It highlights some of the most significant factors that are likely to influence land use change in the future and assesses how the region could respond to them. By summarising these issues, it aims to present a broad overview which stimulates wider stakeholder involvement and further debate on future land use change in the region. It is also hoped that the overview it provides will aid strategic rural land use planning decisions. The report ends by suggesting a series of actions and an invitation for stakeholders to get involved. 1.2 The report focusses on land use change. It is difficult to define ‘change’, as there are graduations from specific land management activities to abrupt change. In the main the focus is on change of use – from woodland to renewable energy or from agriculture to woodland for example. Throughout the report the term ‘rural land use planning’ is used. This is not seen as any one, specific process but a broad term for activities, particularly at a more strategic level, which aim to plan or explore future changes in rural land use. 1.3 The report draws on the work of the Aberdeenshire Land Use Strategy Pilot (the Pilot). This report is one part of a programme of work that was taken forward for the Pilot. Further information on the Pilot can be found in Section 3.0. Taking account of significant trends, the report will explore how changes in rural land use planning might best deliver for society, the environment and the economy. It will highlight future challenges, identifying opportunities, barriers and trade-offs, and areas where multiple benefits (‘win-wins’) might be achieved. Land use and land use change are complex subjects; the report aims to be relatively brief and cannot cover every aspect of relevance. 1.4 In November 2014 this report was sent, in draft, for comment to a range of stakeholders that had been involved in the Pilot. Where possible their comments and suggested changes have been included in this final version. Those who responded are thanked for their input to the report and to the Pilot process overall. 2.0 Report structure 2.1 Following this section, this report is split into 3 parts. Part 1 briefly introduces the Pilot (section 3.0), presents an overview of the key drivers of land use change in the region (section 4.0) and describes the methods used, and consultations carried out by the Pilot (section 5.0). Part 2 contains five policy themed sections (6.0 to 10.0). Within each policy theme, a series of land use change issues and opportunities are explored. The work of the Pilot under these themes is briefly summarised (a fuller description of the work is available in other reports on the Pilot’s website). The sections also introduce a number of key issues that the Pilot was not able to explore fully but are known to be significant. Part 3 sets out a list of suggested actions for Aberdeenshire (section 11.0) and describes future steps and suggests how this work could be continued (section 12). 2 PART 1 – Introduction and drivers of change 3.0 The Aberdeenshire Land Use Strategy Pilot 3.1 Between March 2013 and March 2015, Aberdeenshire Council and Scottish Borders Council delivered two regional Land Use Strategy Pilots. These are part of a package of work supporting and embedding the Land Use Strategy (LUS). The Pilots were directly funded by Scottish Government and timed so as to inform the 2016 revision of the Strategy. Despite the overarching land use focus of the LUS, the Pilots were asked to specifically focus on rural land use. 3.2 The Aberdeenshire Land Use Strategy Pilot was delivered in partnership between Aberdeenshire Council and the James Hutton Institute. It covers the Aberdeenshire local authority area and focuses on issues related to land use change. In summary, the aims of the Pilot are to: encourage an approach to decision making which takes account of the goods and services that the natural environment delivers to society, and promote a more integrated, long term approach to decision making which is informed by local need and opportunity as well as regional, national and international targets. 3.3 The Pilot was been created in the recognition that there are clear challenges and opportunities related to rural land use planning. Notably a need to further integrate different land use types to achieve multiple economic, social and environmental benefits, a need to consider and plan better for climate change, a desire to involve people and communities more fully in rural land use planning and the need to address significant environmental challenges such as halting biodiversity loss. 3.4 The Pilot operated at two geographic scales - at the regional scale, and also in two local focus areas: in the upper Dee and around Huntly. In the local focus areas, the views and opinions of the local community were sought as a means of exploring what might be ‘missed’ at the regional scale, as well as how local people can engage with debates on land use. 3.5 The Pilot aimed to cover all of the major land use change issues for the region. Time and resources available to the project meant that it could not be a full exploration of every issue in every part of the region. This report is one of the outputs from the Pilot; it draws on the work of the project itself, as well as a broad overview of land use change issues gained during the process. 4.0 Land use and drivers of change in Aberdeenshire 4.1 The most up-to-date comprehensive data for land use across the whole Aberdeenshire region comes from the Countryside Survey’s Land Cover Map 2007 (LCM2007). Figure 1 presents a summary of LCM2007 data for Aberdeenshire with land cover figures as a percentage of the total area of the region. 3 Figure 1: Aberdeenshire % Land Coverage (LCM2007) 2% 4% 9% 11% Broadleaf woodland Coniferous woodland 14% Arable Improved grassland Rough and semi-natural grassland 3% 26% Water and wetlands Heather moorland 8% Montane and bare rock Urban and sub-urban 23% 4.2 Although the LCM2007 presents a snapshot in time that could now be considered out of date, the relative proportions of land cover in Aberdeenshire are interesting to note. Approximately 50% of the land cover comprises improved grassland and arable land. Enclosed farmland is the dominant land use in the eastern half of the region. Heather moorland and montane/bare rock cover almost a quarter of the area, predominately in the west, and highlight the diversity of land cover types, elevation and topography. 4.3 Clearly climate, soils and topography have a significant influence on the mix of land cover types in Aberdeenshire and will continue to do so into the future. However, a range of political, social and economic factors also have influence. The interaction between these ‘human’ and environmental factors creates the land use mix. These interactions are not constant: different elements are more significant in different parts of the region and for different people. The relationships also change over time as the nature of the factors change. 4.4 As described, the Pilot focussed on issues in relation to land use change. The work of the Pilot and the input of stakeholders has identified some of the key drivers of land use change; summaries of each of these are presented in the following sections. Agricultural policy 4.5 Agriculture is a highly significant land use for the culture, environment and economy of Aberdeenshire. With approximately 50% of the region composed of arable and improved grassland and a further percentage (for which complete figures are not available) used for extensive grazing, the reasons for agriculture’s significance are clear. As in much of the rest of Great Britain, 20th century agricultural policy, in tandem with increased mechanisation, had a significant bearing on farm practices and the landscape of Aberdeenshire. This was primarily through increased intensification, increased farm specialisation, the amalgamation of small farms into larger units and a reduction in the workforce involved in agriculture. However, there is a long history of agricultural improvement in the region going back many centuries and the biggest land use changes in the region (e.g. clearing of woodland, the draining of land) occurred well before the 20th century. 4 4.6 At the close of the 20th century, there was a general shift in agricultural policies, away from mechanisms which prioritised production, to mechanisms which also supported rural communities and environmental goals. Direct funding mechanisms such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) are drivers of land use change – the particular make-up of the rules and incentives resulting in shifts from arable to grassland (or vice versa), or farmland to woodland for example. As this report was written, the latest CAP and SRDP arrangements were being finalised. They will have a significant bearing on land use in Aberdeenshire. Some key issues for the region are the move to an area-based payment system, ongoing direct support to beef production and the rules on minimum activity (a measure to target ‘slipper farmers’). The extent to which the new Ecological Focus Areas will have an influence is currently unclear, although the proposed requirements suggest they will not be strong drivers of land use change.
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